Happy 2017 everyone! I realised how I tend to gather events from the year into a new year post, so I thought I should make one every year since my schedule and procrastination never gives me time to write individual posts anymore. I’m going to talk briefly about certain events I didn’t cover, but go a bit more into AFA2016. At the same time, I may talk a little about my recent absences from this blog, despite the fact that I’m supposed to be off exams already. I might repeat some things from what I’ve said previously, but I hope it isn’t too much. I messed up and posted this on the 3rd, but oh well it’s still relevant, isn’t it?
Sucked into the World of Mobile Gaming
Yes, I’ll admit. This is actually the source of my procrastination. School’s been busy, but it hasn’t been to the point that I don’t have time to type posts. On the way home from school I could always use my laptop to update posts offline on the bus, and I had spare pockets of time to do so at home, but I just didn’t. Why? Because I would be busy juggling 7 apps and trying to make as much progress as possible. The apps would be the JP & EN Versions of Love Live, Kingdom Hearts Unchained X, Gossip Girl: PARTY, Tales of Link, Mystic Messenger & Idolish7. With the closing of Gossip Girl I have already dropped that game, dropped Tales of Link & Mystic Messenger, because I realised I couldn’t juggle every single game. I’m close to wanting to delete Mystic Messenger but I remembered I did make a purchase there. :’D
Because of all of these games, I was busy playing them and ignoring like blog. True, Unchained X was actually pretty fun but I should have made some progress on the blog. Instead, now I have a giant list of posts waiting for me to be completed. I still play Idolish7 once in a while when there’s an event, and I still play Love Live a lot. I will post my friend codes for both games somewhere on my twitter probably, and pray I actually don’t get into one more mobile game that isn’t Utapri. I’m close to getting into Yumecast tbh. Eitherway, I’m planning on making more time for this blog as much as possible!
Cosplay, Cosplay and more Socialising
From around Christmas in the year 2015, I started cosplaying. Thought it was going to be for fun, but I never knew it was going to go that far. And yes, I landed myself into cosplay hell. I did a total of 6 cosplays this year, but there was one thing which was still hard: socialising with everyone else. Socialising is something I really can’t do, so that part didn’t turn out too well for me. :’D I won’t go into further details but a few more personal issues with myself ended up with me getting unmotivated to do anything.
Well, cosplaying had it’s own good points. A few good things that I got from it was to be more confident in myself. I had a lack of confidence in everything mainly because of my size, which made me really unconfident about myself because I’m never as tall as the character. I actually don’t do many of the “norms” of cosplay for tons of reasons, mainly me not wanting to risk hurting my body because of this hobby. I know, I know, cosplay needs to be more “realistic” and shit, but I don’t give a fuck. This hobby has burnt my money, but it has definitely given me more mental strength because of it. I can do what I want to do. I have been less lazy and more independent because of this damn hobby.
As such, here’s a montage of all the cosplays I have done this year! The pictures mostly come from my Twitter, where you should definitely follow to get my latest shenanigans. The characters mostly came from Love Live, but I did finish a dream of cosplaying as Mikoto from Norn9. I just need a Natsuhiko to complete my dream fully but it’s impossible to find someone who wants to do Natsuhiko in my country anyway. Am I going to do more next year? I probably will so look forward to more pictures.
AFA2016: A sweetest AFA so far.
Yes, I found this year’s AFA to be sweet. Why? Because of the cute seiyuus who were invited as guests this year! This year’s notable male seiyuu guests were Okamoto Nobuhiko, Matsuoka Yoshitsugu & Yamashita Daiki. They were invited for the respective series of Assassination Classroom, Sword Art Online, Shokugeki no Soma & Boku no Hero Academia. They were all mainstream anime, but oh well at least I knew about Assassination Classroom. All three of them were super cute during their own segments. I missed Yamashita Daiki’s segment, but I did hear he was indeed extremely cute there. The programmes were actually changed up and were better this time compared to previously, are were more entertaining than just a boring Q&A from the fans. This tine, other than the Q&A, they had a living reading section, and even had a hilarious batsu game for Matsuoka during the Shokugeki no Soma segment.
For Okamoto’s meet and greet, I didn’t go for the event because my budget didn’t let me, and my sister went instead. Apparently it was just a small private talk session but not questions, and it was just more of him signing autographs. There seemed to be a lot of his fans who went to the private meet-and-greet, so I’m glad those ladies got the tickets! At the same time, I believe that session was literally a bad marketing plan by the dumb Taiwan merch company muse for people to buy their assassination classroom goods.
Booths wise, it was pretty okay I guess but with the usual drama of fake merch being sold, oh well sasuga them but I didn’t bother. Tbh, I didn’t spend a lot of time in the con mainly because I was in cosplay so it was hard walking around without the fear of something dropping off. Well I did drop a shit ton of money at the Animate x AFA Shop booth, trying to get my Utapri merch that I missed. At the same time, it was pretty memorable for my friend since I bought like 20 things as the fangirl I was. I tried getting into the artist section, but it was way to packed and I exited like the wing because I didn’t want to jam myself between smelly armpits and have the risk of something dropping off. Even worse, I’m so short that the crowd doesn’t even see me, so I gave up and only did doujin merch shopping at the end of the day where the crowds were lesser. Unfortunately, everything pretty much sold out at the end of the day.
Mini Stage wise, it was at one corner which I avoided like the plague because of the crowd, but apparently the invited guest cosplayer list was amazing, and I do agree that their cosplays were indeed beautiful. Also, Pikotaro, that dude who went viral because of his PPAP video, came as well. He really caused a giant crowd being the last programme for the entire AFA on the mini stage. And that PPAP is indeed really addictive and strange. Don’t ask me why IT STRANGELY GOT STUCK IN MY HEAD FOR A DAY. Jokes aside, it was a sweet event, and I’d like to thank my friends and my sister for helping me out with my cosplay for both days. It was tiring but fun!
Sadly, I don’t have any pictures from the event because I didn’t bring my camera along. I didn’t even document my loot this year. Yes, I feel terrible but I got nothing. If you want pics of the convention, head to this link.
EOY2016
It was my 2nd time at this event. Tbh, I don’t have many good memories with this one as the worst things always happened on this event. This time, it was more calm, and more talking with friends. But I realised I seriously needed more friends in this community. This event, being one about cosplay mainly, kinda sparked off more plans for myself. From random dance cover ideas to more groups, but my sane side tells me that I’ll have to manage and not get into too many. After all, I still have this blog to run!
Plans for 2017
My first plans are to clear the long ass backlog of posts that I have to finish writing on this blog. That starts from the full review of Code:Realize, then continued posts for Dialovers DF and Ken ga Kim. I’ve decided that I’ll slowly work my way through those posts, and finish reviews for new games that I’ve played first. That means I’ll put first priority to finishing any reviews for new games, and work on those two games while I’m playing a new one. Currently, I have plans to complete another route post for Ken ga Kimi once I’m done with Code:Realize, and I’ll keep alternating when I’m done with both. Ken ga Kimi will take a very long time to finish, but I hope you’ll bear with me!
The base line is, I haven’t forgotten about this blog. I still love writing about otome games, but procrastination loves to haunt me so I never get things done. Thank you for the continued support you guys have given, and I’ll keep writing new content for everyone.
未来へ向こう 